Chamber and committees

Thank you very much, convener. I am very pleased to be here to talk about the Offshore Fishing (Prohibition of Fishing Methods) (Scotland) Order 2025. The management measures in the order mark the most significant step that we have yet taken to safeguard Scotland’s offshore marine environment and to address the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change in our marine area.

The order laid before the Parliament seeks to introduce site-specific restrictions on certain fishing gear types within 19 offshore MPAs. The measures, which were consulted on between August and October 2024, include sites designated under both the UK Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and the Conservation of Offshore Habitats and Species Regulations 2017.

Scottish ministers have a number of statutory duties in this area. Our goal is to ensure that the sites achieve their conservation objectives and support wider ecosystem health, while also recognising the realities for fishers and coastal communities, and we consider that the fisheries management measures are reasonable and proportionate in all circumstances.

For each site, management options were tailored on the basis of the best available scientific evidence and advice, including that from the JNCC as well as detailed evidence on how fishing gear affects the habitats that we are protecting. In 15 cases, that has allowed for zonal closures, with the remaining five taken forward as full closures. The measures are grounded in evidence and aim to support the achievement of conservation objectives at site while allowing sustainable use as appropriate.

I acknowledge that some sectors have concerns about the scope of these proposals, and that is why we have worked closely with the industry throughout the process and have published clear impact assessments. We recognise that there are concerns for the fishing industry, particularly around displacement and economic impact, and, as a result, we have sought to design targeted and proportionate measures. Our analysis shows that overall economic impacts are limited in scale, especially when set against the importance of meeting our legal duties in relation to the protection of the marine environment. We have taken a pragmatic and proportional approach.

I want to emphasise that these proposals reflect our statutory obligations, our environmental commitments, and our responsibility to manage Scotland’s marine resources in the interests of current and future generations. They are based on evidence, have been shaped by dialogue and collaboration and are essential to protecting our marine biodiversity in a changing climate. The measures are not about excluding fishing unnecessarily. They are about ensuring that protections are in place to allow our MPAs to achieve their conservation objectives, and they are essential if we are to safeguard the most sensitive offshore ecosystems—ecosystems that, of course, include nursery areas for fish stocks and that contribute to overall sea health.

I welcome the committee’s scrutiny of these measures, and I am more than happy to take questions.

It is important to put this in context. Obviously we have to take cognisance of the statutory advice that we get from the JNCC, and from NatureScot in the inshore areas, but we also have to balance that with the other assessments that we do, not least on the socioeconomic impact. As I said in my opening remarks, what we do has to be proportionate as well as evidence based.

The JNCC gives us advice based on its objectives and the data that it collects, but we are also taking evidence from the people affected by our decisions. I should mention that 94 per cent of MPAs will have no bottom trawling as a result of these measures, which I think conservationists, and people in Scotland generally, have been looking for. However, where there might be the possibility of, or the opportunity to have, sustainable fishing, why rule it out, as long as it is not having any impact on the features that we are wanting to protect? We have to recognise that marine protected areas do not have to be no-go zones when it comes to other aspects of the marine environment.

We wanted to take that pragmatic approach. I did not see all your previous witnesses—I saw some of the second evidence session—but, based on the feedback that we have been getting from environmental NGOs and those representing the fishing industry, I think that we have largely managed to achieve that sort of approach through collaboration and after dealing with all the available evidence and data, particularly through the JNCC, which uses all of that evidence and data, and taking into account the socioeconomic potential for loss and even job losses. We have tried to take that proportional approach, but we have also stated our aim to have, as we go forward, an adaptive approach.

The measures need time to bed in—this is not just some moment in time when we are saying, “We’ve done the measures, so that’s it.” They need to be analysed over time, because quite a lot of the ecosystems that we are talking about are very slow growing. Therefore, that sort of thing will not happen quickly. It will happen on the basis of the advice that we get from the JNCC and others about when it is best to review the measures, but we do have to be adaptive.

Moreover, the marine environment is very much impacted by climate change. Species and other things move and change in that environment, and we need to be fleet of foot in adapting to that.

I will answer that question, but I will also bring in John Mouat to give you some of the specific detail, because my team are steeped in the issue and know that sort of thing.

We wanted to use the best available advice to take a feature-based approach. Each MPA has a variety of features on the seabed, so it is the seabed itself that, by and large, is being protected. There are some areas in which particular ecosystems might be impacted more than others. In particular, with the full-site closures, there will have been an assessment that no fishing can be done in that area, because the evidence will have highlighted the impact that it would have on what might be particularly vulnerable areas. In others, however, there will be a mixed picture, and some activities might be sustainable because they are not having the same impact.

As for the criteria, we got scientific advice from the statutory nature conservation bodies, as you would expect, as well as from the chief scientific adviser for marine on the distribution of features and the level of protection required in each area. I guess that those are the criteria. We cannot have just blanket criteria, because it cannot just be a case of checking things off. After all, we are talking about complex marine environments that contain diverse ecosystems.

I will hand over to John Mouat, to give you a wee bit more detail.

We can argue over that. Obviously, the wording of a document has not made it into how I expressed myself but, hopefully, the meaning of what I said is in line with what you have just read out to me.

In an adaptive approach, which is the approach that we are taking, there is always a need to adapt and refine our methods. We also need to base our models on the best available data and science, and indeed the monitoring systems that may be available to us. Technology will adapt as well and something may present itself in the future that will allow us to get better data, or more data, or whatever it might be. I have given examples of what we have done in the past few years to enhance that data, and the JNCC is doing its level best to make sure that everything that it takes into consideration is the most up to date.

The answer to the final part of your question is yes. This is not a static moment in time that we do not revisit. It is the nature of nature—things change. It is also very important that we monitor the efficacy of the decisions that we have made in this area. If we are allowing sustainable fishing in certain MPAs, that has to be monitored to make sure that it is not having any impact on the features that we are trying to protect. It goes both ways.

Socioeconomic impacts are a very important factor and that comes back to the first question that I was asked, about why we went for a zonal approach over a blanket ban on any economic activity happening in MPAs. The zonal aspect is in reflection of the socioeconomic impacts that a blanket ban would have if we did not take a proportionate, pragmatic and evidence-led approach. That is my answer to that.

I would say that we already work very collaboratively, and I hope that that came across in your previous sessions. I listened to quite a bit of your second panel, but I was in meetings when you were speaking to your first panel.

I think that the reason why we have reached this place in which we have broad buy-in from the vast majority of the fishing sector and from our ENGOs for our approach is that we have taken a collaborative approach. There will always be people who do not think that we are doing enough on the conservation side, but we are fulfilling our statutory duties while taking into account the pressures on the fishing industry.

I must pay tribute to my officials who are with me and the teams that are not with me just now. They have had not just an open-door approach but a very collaborative approach, which has led us to this point.

If anyone feels that they have not been consulted enough, that is not for the want of opportunity to engage, because there have been engagement opportunities. Those include opportunities in, for example, the EU advisory councils, while we were in the EU. There have been opportunities to be involved in all the MPA consultations and events.

The fact that someone thinks that they might not be affected does not mean that they should not be in the room, putting forward their voice. There are lessons in that for other MPA measures as we go forward. I encourage anyone who is working in the marine sector or whose sector is in the marine sphere, if there are any discussions, including on measures or MPAs, to take up the opportunity to be in the room with the rest of the stakeholders who are involved, to make sure that their voice is heard.

The more that we have that technology deployed on our vessels, the easier it is for us to see whether they comply. First of all, we can see the GPS data of where they are, but we take other measurements as well. We have automated alerts for vessel activity within restricted areas. Vessel transit speed is limited to six knots and we will be able to see if they are going over that. There will also be efforts using other technologies, such as drones, aircraft and compliance vessels.

There are other issues, which John Mouat might be able to explain to you, but I will give you the layman’s version. If, when a vessel is in a restricted area, the gear used to fish is not reeled up in the vessel but is out, that is an issue. There are rules around that as well, such as the requirement to stow fishing gear when the vessel is in a restricted area. Technology will make advancements that help us in relation to those issues, and we have to be alive to that and take advantage of developments.

I go back to my point that, from my perspective, there is no reluctance in the fishing industry about adopting these measures. In fact, my impression is that the industry would like to do more.

We have already bottomed out some of the lessons learned, particularly with regard to the one sector of the fishing industry that did not feel that it was involved. I have set out how we tried to involve it, but it was not satisfied with that. I think that the biggest lesson in that regard is that that sector is now represented at the table. That sector—inshore fisheries—has done a power of work in terms of the innovation around the fishing gear that it uses. It will be a fundamental partner and stakeholder as we go forward.

I would like to replicate the success of what has been done in the fisheries management measures for MPAs. As I say, I heard the feedback from your second panel of witnesses, and I am delighted with the feedback that we have had from the fishing sector generally regarding how we have reached this point. I want to continue the openness and transparency of our approach, as well as the way in which we have listened to stakeholders and engaged the sectors, the ENGOs and the scientific community in everything that we do. All stakeholders have to be around the table.

I do not want to blow our own trumpet, but the current position gives me hope. It certainly seems that we have buy-in from most of the stakeholders around the fishing management measures in the MPAs. We need to continue to take whatever was successful in this particular collaboration into the next pieces of work that we do. We will have calls for evidence, workshops and meetings to review the proposals. We will make sure that all of those are accessible. When I had responsibility for inshore fisheries, quite a lot of the meetings featured people dialling in from vessels. We have to recognise that a lot of the people who want to contribute do not have 9 to 5 jobs, cannot come into the Scottish Parliament and cannot come to in-person meetings. We need to be flexible in that regard.

Everyone wants the decisions that we make in this area to be based on science. I will not go over what we are doing in terms of the monitoring, the data collection and the work of the JNCC in this area, but I will say that we have to be alive to all the data from the fishing fleet and the scientific community and use it to inform those decisions. We must take assistance when offered. The fishing sector has data and studies that it has done with particular universities and so on, and we need to take in that advice and make sure that the JNCC knows about it. We must take a collaborative approach.

I hope that we are coming to all of that from a good starting point. I did not hear the evidence that you took from the first panel of witnesses, but the feedback that I have been getting suggests that, while it is true that there may be people who want full closure sites across all the MPAs and that there might be areas in which fishers want the ability to do more fishing, the collaborative approach that we have taken has been fruitful in terms of balancing those views and coming to a decision on the zonal measures. I am hopeful that we will take that approach into the development of the next measures.

That is true.

That is really important. I am very aware of that. “Disparity” is not the right word, but there are individual small vessels that might not be plugged into any of the organisations that come and give evidence on behalf of a lot of the industry.

First of all, we have to be very careful about those people’s ability to contribute, and in that respect we have to think about their needs rather than Government’s needs.

We have a spatial platform, and John Mouat can give you more detail on how people can have an input. We are improving our outreach in respect of getting people’s views. I will hand over to John to give you more detail on that.